If everyone's doing best practices, what's the advantage? That's why i4cp looks for next practices--approaches that impact market performance but that few companies are using. Here are just a few of the leading-edge practices we've uncovered.

To redefine HR's value proposition with employees and shift the people process to experiences that deliver the One Ford plan, the company formed a People Lab comprised of HR employees from all regions and levels of the organization.2017 Next Practice Award WINNER

Post-call customer surveys revealed ongoing frustrations about the tone and feel of conversations between customers and CSAs. Here's what Cigna did to address the problem.2017 Next Practice Award WINNER

HR was tasked with figuring out how to create new programs to achieve business goals on a limited budget. One job rotation program projected needed $1.2 million; they were tasked with making this solution happen with no budget.2017 Next Practice Award WINNER

Booz Allen Hamilton created a suite of leadership excellent programs to provide a higher impact to the business and to include a differentiated investment in accelerating the development of top talent.2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

LinkedIn took a step back and asked the team to imagine identifying all early-in-career talent by never going to another campus again in the traditional sense. One of the strategies that came from that is Accelerate U. 2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

TIAA has a strong history with diversity and inclusion and as a market leader on the topic. But in recent years, with new and revealing ways of looking at its culture survey, it became clear there was more that could be done.2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

In 2015, the extended time-to-fill caused by hiring external candidates led to a cumulative loss of three years of executive productivity. By closing the gap, the company can now reinvest that executive productivity back into the business.2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

To ensure Sears can review the thousands of candidates who apply quickly, a foundational pre-employment assessment was developed and validated to select candidates who were the best fit for the organization.2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

One of the first actions taken by Prudential as part of its cultural transformation was to develop new leadership competencies that defined what it means to be a Prudential leader.2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

Conversational leadership does not only drive communication and employee engagement to understand and support BASF strategy; it provides an opportunity to leverage the portfolio and learning solutions to inspire personal growth.2017 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

Ford demonstrates how it applies cutting-edge high-performance practices to deliver a strong development program that aims to keep its executive pipelines stoked with leaders who have what it takes to keep Ford at the top of markets that stretch worldwide.

Imagine your organization was approached with an unusual invitation from another company that went something like this: Send us a few of your most talented employees to come work for us. We promise to send them back to you in a year.

If you are thinking about redesigning your performance management process, you aren’t alone. Financial services firm TIAA realized that its process was not maximizing desired outcomes, and set out to revamp its approach.

To deliver on its strategy to fully embed diversity into every aspect of its culture, HSBC delivers on specific initiatives to attract, hire, develop, and retain diverse talent in the bank.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

By putting on the HR Hackathon, LinkedIn has started a worldwide phenomenon to start tackling non-technical problems in a crowd-sourced way just like technical teams have been doing for years.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

After transitioning away from the traditional performance review process, Sears was faced with legacy systems and processes that were no longer congruent with its talent philosophy--including its talent review process.

Breakthrough Leadership, Campbell’s cornerstone talent development program created for high-performing employees, is focused on empowering the workforce and leveraging employees as an ultimate strategic advantage.

3M is ahead of the curve in several key areas: choosing when to draw on employees versus non-traditional talent sources, redefining talent management processes, and understanding implications of change for HR.

While succession planning has been going on for years, it continues to evolve in quality, quantity and approach to ensure delivery of a strong succession pipeline for key roles.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

Recent changes in the organization, including the spin-off of the R&D pharmaceutical business line to form AbbVie, resulted in strategic imperatives to establish the direction of the new Abbott.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

Investing in workforce education is the shared value proposition that advances the competitiveness of McDonald’s and simultaneously advances the economic and social condition of the communities in which they do business.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

Starting in the fall of 2013, a team at Sears Holdings Corporation set out to learn from what other leading-edge companies have done to transform performance management and overhaul traditional performance processes.2016 Next Practice Award Finalist

Amtrak's HC Strategy, a three-year plan refreshed annually, describes the path for making Amtrak a company known, from a talent perspective, for people who deliver safety, customer service, and high performance.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist

Progress was achieved through a variety of efforts and initiatives that were built on a holistic framework across our employees' life cycle - hire, develop, advance, engage, and retain women.2016 Next Practice Award Semi-Finalist